The Lost Avatar: Book One, Rebellion
by inmypantaloons
Summary: Forty years ago the world faced one of the greatest threats that it has ever known: a man named Amon, who possessed the power to take peoples' bending away—for good. The Avatar vowed to save us, to stop Amon at any cost, so she went up against him in battle…And failed. The new Avatar has yet to surface, but I know they're out there. They have to be. They're our only hope. OCs, AU.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: So, I had another version of this story up a while back, but I didn't like how it was turning out, so I scrapped it. Now I've reworked it with mostly the same characters, but with a longer plot and I'm feeling a lot better about it this time around. I hope you all enjoy it. :D

The Lost Avatar  
Book One  
Rebellion

**Forty years ago the world faced one of the greatest threats that it has ever known: a man named Amon, who possessed the power to take peoples' bending away—for good. The Avatar vowed to save us all, to stop Amon at any cost, so she rallied her allies and went up against him in battle…**

**And failed.**

**Many years went by before Avatar Korra succumbed to her fate, though it is said she never stopped fighting. Her battle went unseen and unheard while the world she had known crumbled away at the hands of Amon and his Equalists, replaced by an iron-fisted regime of "equality."**

**Now Amon has left the world in the care of his successors, and while the resistance still wages war against their oppressors, their courage is flagging. The only one who could rekindle the flames of rebellion is the Avatar, but none have dared come forth to claim that title. I know in my heart that they're out there, though. They have to be. **

**They're our only hope. **

xxx

A strong wind blew, fearsome and cold, and thick with swirling snow. The moon was invisible behind a shroud of dark nighttime clouds, and there was no light but for the flickering beams of an electric lantern. Qiang cursed as the light dimmed and sputtered before returning to a strong, steady glow. His only hope this whole accursed trip up the mountain was that the damned light didn't go out. He wore a thick, insulated coat, a hat with ear flaps, gloves, heavy pants, a good pair of boots, and three pairs of socks, but all of that wouldn't be worth spit in the wind if the light went out.

The path ahead was difficult enough to follow in clear weather, without all this spirits-damned snow and wind. He'd slipped and fell at least three times already, and his knees ached where they'd impacted with the cold stone of the steps that were hidden underneath the snow. Three detours around drifts too big to climb had nearly gotten him lost even with the light, and then there were the occasional howls of wolf-bats in the darkness, driven out of the mountain by hunger. All Qiang knew was that the sisters at the temple had better count their lucky stars that he was such a damn gentleman.

According to what he'd heard, there was an outbreak of red fever in the village high up on the mountain, and while the sisters had been doing their best to help, there wasn't much they could do without medicine. Medicine that had, of course, arrived at the outpost at the _bottom_ of the mountain just as the storm set in. The coward of a deliveryman had refused to make the climb, citing fear of freezing to death as his only reason before driving off. Qiang didn't consider himself that brave of a man, but somebody had to climb the mountain with the medicine, didn't they? It had been the only sensible thing for him to do.

_Sensibility was never my strong suit either,_ he thought wryly as he trudged forward, furrowing deep grooves in the snow with each step. It was less like walking and more like pushing at that point. The snow had reached about calf-height, and he couldn't lift his legs up high enough to take a solid step. A pack on his back held the medicine and a few bottles of water that were probably frozen by now, which accounted for how the straps had begun to dig into his shoulders.

"Almost there," he told himself, though he'd been saying that for what felt like hours now. Honestly, he had no idea how much further it was. The going had been easy enough at first, before the blizzard had really built up a head of steam. Now he wasn't even sure if he was on the right path. There were no markers on the trail, just a dip in the snow between the rocks and trees to show that there was an actual trail in front of him.

Once more the flashlight flickered, and he stopped to examine it with a growl, shaking it and smacking it with his free hand. It was a big, round light with a strap that connected to his coat—easier to handle in the wilderness, and brighter than a regular flashlight, when it was working properly, that is. There must have been something loose inside, or maybe the snow had gotten into the mechanical bits. "Just hold out 'til I get there," he pleaded, though he didn't know if he was appealing to the light, or the spirits.

Just as he was about to take another step, Qiang paused, an odd sound reaching his ears on the wind. For a moment he thought it was an animal, or his imagination. Being out there alone, in the dark and snow could do funny things to the mind. Still, he stood, listening hard until he heard it again—a high, thin cry, piercing the night. "That's a baby," he said aloud, though his own voice was lost as the chill winds howled around him. Feeling slightly panicky, he raised his light and shone it in the woods around him. He couldn't have reached the village already, could he? Not without seeing something. There _was_ a sign outside the village, but it could have been knocked over in the storm.

Again he heard it—the shrill wail of a baby, out there alone in the cold. Overwhelmed by a sense of duty, Qiang did the one thing he'd always been told not to do—he stepped off the path. It was as deadly and dangerous a thing to do as jumping off a cliff, especially in this weather. For an ordinary traveler with zero knowhow, it was all too easy to lose their way or get turned around. Even for Qiang, who had grown up in the woods, this was foolish. But there was a _baby_ out in the _snow_. He _had_ to find it.

With the wind whistling in his ears it was hard to pinpoint where the sound was coming from. With each shift in direction, the crying sounded like it was coming from somewhere else. A few turns in, and Qiang had no idea which way he'd come from. He could only hope that there was enough left of his footprints to find his way back after. "Where are you?" he asked, not expecting his question to be answered, but just as the words left his lips, his light went out. It didn't sputter, or dim—it simply stopped working. Heart in his throat, Qiang froze, surrounded by a thick, impenetrable darkness. He was suddenly too afraid to move, unable to see, or even hear what was going on around him. The light going out was as much a death sentence as any other he'd ever heard of.

Then he saw it—a different light, soft and blue-white, glowing through the trees. "What the…," he murmured, his body turning and moving forward of its own volition. He made no move to stop himself, and the light shimmered and beckoned him onward, like a beacon. Somehow he knew that this was right; this was what he should do. As he moved, he forgot about everything else—he couldn't feel the wind, or see the snow, or hear how his heart was pounding in his ears. All that mattered was that he reach the light.

He moved through the trees, and pushed past bushes, stumbling but not slowing. The light grew brighter and brighter with each step he took, and he tried to move faster, reaching out. It was just at the bottom of a low rise—a snow drift—where he fell. Still, he didn't stop. He scrambled, floundering in the snow, desperately climbing toward the top of the drift. The light was so bright now that he couldn't see anything else, and he stretched, holding his hand out as if to touch it. Then everything went black.

For a moment he didn't move, on hand and knee in the snow, one arm held out to touch something that was no longer there. He felt slightly stunned as the feeling returned to him, the sensation of cold and weariness. Then his light snapped back on, and he saw that he had reached the top of the drift. Blinking away the afterimage of the bright light, he grabbed for the lantern and pointed it down the other side of the drift, sliding it down to the bottom where it illuminated something dark laying in the snow. "Oh, spirits," he breathed before practically throwing himself down the hill of snow. The baby was no longer crying, and that scared him, but the figure in the snow scared him even worse.

At the bottom he slid to a stop, digging in his hands before stumbling to his feet. "Excuse me," he said, but the figure didn't move. Swallowing his sudden terror, Qiang forced his feet to move forward until he stood over the shape, and shone his light down on it.

She didn't move, but he could tell she was a "she." Her face was turned away, and her hood was up, but he could see her dark hair spilling out into the snow. When he put a hand on her arm, something about the way she felt—stiff, cold—told him everything he needed to know. _But where's the baby?_ This time his question was answered by a soft mewling. That was all he needed to spur him into action. He reached over the prone figure, and dug into the snow, pushing the soft build-up away, ignoring how it blew into his face and chilled his bare skin. Finally, he uncovered her arms, and wrapped in her arms was a thick bundle of cloth. With a noise of horror and triumph, Qiang yanked the bundle free, and pulled back the cloth.

The baby looked up at him with large, green eyes, expression curious. A brown shock of hair covered her forehead, and her eyes and nose were red, her face was lined with the salty tracks of her tears. _She knows,_ he thought. "Come on," he said, covering her face again. He cradled her—he didn't know how he knew, but he knew the baby was a girl—in one arm, using the other to hold his now perfectly functioning flashlight.

The trail appeared again in short shrift, and all too soon he saw the lights of the town. The sisters ran out to him, exclaiming and making a fuss over him and the baby. One of them took the medicine, and another lead him to a small, squat building where they pulled off his coat and boots, and sat him in front of a radiator with a bowl of hot stew. The baby they cooed at, and cleaned and fed until she fell asleep. When he told them what had happened they said they would call the authorities as soon as the power came back on.

That night he slept like a log, and when he woke up the storm had cleared. He washed up, and ate, and put his coat and boots back on. It was going to be a long hike back to the outpost, after all, and he was thinking it was time for a career change. Someplace where it didn't snow might be nice.

"What about the baby?" one of the sisters asked—a younger girl, Jiayi, he thought she'd said.

"Keep her here," he said after a moment, "I wouldn't know what to do with a baby. Let the police sort her out." He turned to leave, but he paused in the doorway. The sister was watching him with warm eyes, and she smiled when he turned back, "Can you just—can you do me a favor? Tell them her name is Lan. That was my mother's name. It means 'orchid.'" And with that he left, feeling that his duty had been fulfilled.

Jiayi returned to her seat by the cradle one of the sisters had rounded up for the baby, and stroked the hair back from her little forehead. "Lan," she said, and the child looked up at her, expression quizzical, "That sounds just right."

**So there's the prologue. This story is also up on AO3, if you prefer to read it there. Basically, I'm gonna go as far as I can with this. I know it says "Book One," and I do have ideas for others installments, but we'll see how that goes. Review or fave if you liked it! **


	2. Chapter 2

**EDIT: Forgot to mention earlier because I was delirious from lack of sleep, but thanks to my first fav and follower, pupgirl123!**

Chapter One

_Her heart was in her throat, pounding fit to burst right through her ribcage, but she hardly dared to breathe. _Please_, she thought._ Please_. _Don't come in here_. _

_The last time she had been this terrified, it had been on Aang Memorial Island. In that dark room, trapped, surrounded by Equalists—she had thought it was the end. Now, though…if he caught her this time, it would be over for sure. _

He didn't see us come in here_, she thought wildly, _he couldn't have_. She'd blasted a wall of fire down the hallway. He couldn't have gotten through it fast enough, he couldn't have—_

_From the end of the hall, she heard the door creaking on its hinges. _No_, she thought, heart palpitating. _He doesn't know I'm here, he doesn't know I'm here_. All she had to do was remain silent, undetected. Once they were outside she could face him. If he bloodbent her out there, he'd be exposed as the fraud he was. She and Mako had already planted the seeds of doubt. They could beat him. They _would_ beat him._

_They just had to get out of the arena first. _

_Footsteps echoed through the room. She felt dizzy from lack of oxygen, but he was so close. Terror froze her in place. She wished she wasn't so afraid, but what could she do? As strong as she was, she was still only half-trained. She couldn't access the Avatar State—she couldn't even airbend. Amon would make short work of her in here. _

_The footsteps came ever closer. _Keep going_, she thought, _just leave. Spirits, please just leave_. _

_When they stopped right in front of the table she was hiding under she thought she might scream. Out of fear, out of rage, out of frustration. She could feel it welling up inside her, but she choked it down, bit her lip to keep it locked inside. The seconds stretched into years. Her vision blurred, her lungs burned. She thought she might pass out, but if she did she'd be caught for sure. _Please, please, please, please, she thought. We're not here. We must have escaped, we're not here_. _

_Just as she was about to spring from underneath the table, to end this herself on her own terms, he moved. She saw the shadow retreating further into the room, passing by. One, two, three, four—they faded, just far enough that she felt safe loosing a soft breath. A sigh. She barely had time to take another breath, to relieve the ache in her lungs, when something seized hold of her and yanked her from under the table._

_With a cry of surprise and terror she found herself exposed, body contorted, and there he was, looming over her. "No!" she cried. His hands were moving toward her, her body quaking as she strained against his bloodbending technique. This wasn't happening. Something, someone would save her. She would go into the Avatar State. _

"_Let her go!" Mako! She heard the whooshing, felt the heat of his bending, but her hope wilted when she saw him yanked off his feet, flung to the ground like a ragdoll._

No_, she thought as his hand reached down. _No!_ she thought as he placed his thumb against her forehead. _NO!_ she thought as something shuddered inside of her, then fractured into a million jagged pieces. _

_X_

"No!"

Lan woke up flailing, arms swinging at something unseen but undoubtedly menacing. She had the image in her mind—the white mask, those eyes behind it, dark, fathomless, dead. By the time she realized she was alone the dream was already fading.

Gasping, eyes darting around her empty room, she hugged herself, rubbing her arms in an effort to calm her nerves. "Just a nightmare," she murmured. A nightmare about Amon, _again_. _Amon is dead_, she thought. Five years ago they'd televised the funeral. Everyone had watched. They'd all seen the coffin rolling down the street on a bed of flowers, Amon's banner draped on the back of an old style carriage drawn by ostrich-horses. There had been news coverage for days before, and days after.

Lan's nightmares hadn't started until three months ago; right before her sixteenth birthday. Amon had been dead and buried for half a decade, and now for some reason he was haunting her dreams.

Swallowing hard, and taking a deep breath, she threw aside the covers. The details were already growing fuzzy. All she could see when she closed her eyes was that mask leering down at her.

_I was trapped in a room, and he was hunting me, she _thought. It could only mean one thing; she was getting paranoid. She was sixteen, and her peaceful mountain home had been an enclave, a safe haven for benders for as long as she could remember. Xiao Difang was so remote that it hadn't even gotten electricity until twenty years ago. They hardly ever got any visitors aside from weekly deliveries of groceries and mail, and the benders in town knew better than to go around flouting their abilities in the open.

_It was just a dream_, she thought. It had been years since the Equalist Seekers had bothered to make the rounds this far up the mountain. Xiao Difang was safe. It was the home of a Spirit Temple, and the peaceful sisters who ran it. The villagers were farmers and weavers who sold their goods for a modest price. There was no reason for the government to bother with them.

Across the hall from her room she washed up and got ready for the day, unbraiding, combing, then rebraiding her dark brunette hair. There were bags under her sea green eyes, but not so noticeable that she felt she needed makeup to hide them. Her outfit was the usual—the light green robe of a temple ward, and a black tank top and knee-length tights underneath.

Outside, the sun shone, bumbleflies buzzed in the temple garden, and the sisters were already about their morning chores. Yawning, Lan crossed the courtyard, heading for the kitchens. She had inadvertently slept in, so the food in the dining hall would have already been cleared away. Any leftovers would already be in the process of being stored away.

"Morning Emi," she said as she strolled through the door, curling her bare toes up in an effort to protect them from the chilly tile floor. The kitchen was in the basement, and the floor was always cold, no matter what time of year. In the summer she often sought refuge here from the heat, stretching out in a corner with a book, and sneaking the occasional sweet-cake.

"Good morning, Lan," the cheery temple cook greeted her, smiling knowingly as she nodded toward a plate laden with rice porridge, steamed buns, turtle-duck eggs, and a cup of soymilk. "I saw you missed breakfast so I saved you a plate."

"Thanks, Emi," Lan said gratefully, giving the plump little sister a hug from behind.

"You've been sleeping in a lot lately," Emi observed as Lan hopped on a stool and stuffed a bun in her mouth. With her free hand she dipped the other one in her porridge, and spooned sugar into her soymilk.

"I'f been sreepy," she said through a mouthful of bread. Emi winced, and let the issue drop, turning back to washing the cooking pans. She was shortly joined by several temple acolytes, carrying trays of dirty dishes. Lan shoveled her breakfast down as quickly as she could, then rinsed her dish and hurried back upstairs. They would be missing her in the stable.

The temple grew its own produce in fields behind the main buildings, and they raised their own livestock as well. Turtle-ducks, possum-chickens, goat-pigs and cattle-sheep mostly—it was one of Lan's responsibilities to help care for the animals. "Kemuri!" she called as she burst through the open barn door, startling several possum-chickens who clucked at her reproachfully. A snuffling, scraping sound came from the stall in the back of the musty old building, and she made her way over to the door. "Hey boy," she said as a big, dark, antlered head poked out to stare curiously at her, "Wanna get out of there?" The door creaked as she undid the latch, and Kemuri came trotting out, tossing his head in anticipation.

Several priests-in-training were mucking out stalls and laying down fresh straw, tossing down seeds in the yard for the birds. Lan got busy cleaning Kemuri's stall while he nibbled at a trough of oats. The ash-deer had been one of Lan's closest friends since the day she'd found him abandoned and alone in the woods. A fire had destroyed a few acres of forest, and despite the danger, an ever-curious twelve-year-old Lan had gone exploring in the ashes. Though ash-deer were named for their greyish coloring, some people said that they were born from ashes, which was where she had found the trembling fawn. Lan didn't quite believe in the mythology, but she appreciated the coincidence, and she was sure Kemuri did as well. He stood by the door, lashing his long, lion-like tail, a cloven hoof digging at the ground in his eagerness to be off.

"Be patient!" she giggled. There were only three other stalls to clean by the time she was done with Kemuri's, and she and the acolytes made short work of them.

"You're off, then?" one of the older girls, Mari, asked.

"Yeah," she said as she washed her hands off in a basin of clean water, "I gotta head into town and pick up Lixue." The acolytes only nodded in understanding. Lan wasn't the only bender in the temple, but she was the youngest, and still in training. So, several times a week she headed out of town to train with Sifu Chen, well out of sight of prying eyes.

"Ready, Kem?" she asked as she approached her friend. The deer was practically vibrating—she hadn't taken him on a run in three days, having been too busy with chores and lessons. For the past week they had been repainting several rooms within the temple, and between that, lessons with Jiayi, and regular chores, she hadn't had time for much else. It was a relief to swing up onto Kemuri's back, and urge him into a trot with a whisper.

He was off with a jump, hooves clattering across the paving stones of the courtyard, smooth from hundreds of years of walking feet. They were almost at the gate when a voice called out her name, and she had to cluck her tongue to signal Kemuri to stop. He snorted impatiently, and dug at a loose stone with a peevish hoof. "Jiayi?" she said as the sister strode toward her with serene grace.

One of the younger full sisters, Jiayi had been Lan's teacher and primary caretaker since she'd been a baby. She was of middling height, with sandy brown hair that she wore down, so it cascaded around her shoulders. Her robe was the same white and green as all the other sisters, and she wore an earth sigil charm on a thick cord around her neck.

"Heading out?" the sister asked in that knowing tone of hers.

"I have to go, Jiayi," Lan said, anticipating what her mentor was going to say.

With a sigh, Jiayi gave a slight shake of her head, and said "To learn to fight."

"To learn to defend myself. And the people I care about."

"Chen certainly has an interesting opinion on defense," Jiayi said.

"Sifu Chen is the only teacher we have. Nobody else will do it." They were all either too scared, or they actually believed that the young benders of Xiao Difang would be better off not learning to use their abilities.

"I know," Jiayi's tone was colored with a twinge of sadness, "I'm not saying I'm against you training. I just feel as though she's trying to raise her own little army of Jijin." Lan was almost shocked to hear her say the word out loud. The Jijin were the rebels; the resistance. Most people didn't talk about them, and those who did, only did so in whispers.

"Well, she's not," Lan said defensively, "She just wants us to be prepared." Before Jiayi could say anything else, she turned Kemuri toward the gate, "I have to go now. Lixue is waiting for me." With that, they were gone, racing down the lane toward town. Honestly, she was tired of having the same conversation all the time. The villagers whispered about Chen and her students enough as it was, she didn't need to hear it from her guardian.

Main Street was as busy as it ever got by the time she reached the bottom of the hill. A few Satomobiles trundled slowly along the narrow lane, and several people strolled along the sidewalks. Lan riding Kemuri wasn't an oddity—there was an ostrich-horse tied to a post, and several small farm animals were milling about.

Lixue lived down a small side street that wasn't paved. There was a low fence around the property, and a small, scruffy badger-dog was hopping around by the gate as she rode up. Kemuri jumped the fence with ease, and trotted up the path to the front door. "'Xue!" Lan called, "Get out here! Relax, Ushi!" Lixue's pet was yapping and racing around Kemuri's feet like a lunatic. "If you nip him, he's gonna kick you across the yard," she warned.

"Maybe that'd teach him to calm the hell down," Lixue said as she stepped out onto her front stoop, and bent to pull her shoes on. Ushi yipped, and ran up to his owner, jumping up on her bare legs. "Down! Ushi, down! Ugh, that better not be poop on your paws!"

"You shouldn't wear shorts for training," Lan teased as Lixue stepped over her pet.

"So I should wear my nice pants and get them all muddy and torn up wresting in a cave with a bunch of crazy people?" she snorted disdainfully. "Ushi, go away! You chewed my good shoes, you stupid push-broom!" Lan chuckled as she reached down to pull her petite friend up onto Kemuri's back behind her. 'Xue was a waterbender, descended from the Foggy Swamp tribe. She had long, sleek black hair that she wore in a side-ponytail draped over her shoulder, pale skin that tanned in the summer, and sapphire eyes.

"I guess you have a point," she said. "About getting your clothes messed up, I mean." Chen's training sessions were fairly vigorous. Lan could understand where Jiayi was coming from on that point—the woman was a tough teacher, but she just wanted to ensure her charges could protect themselves, even at the expense of their clothing.

"I hope Ye's not there," Lixue said as they hopped the fence out of her yard and headed for the tree line, "He's been such an idiot lately."

"He's always an idiot," Lan corrected.

"No he isn't! He's just…a free spirit."

"'Xue, last week when we were ordering out he asked me how to spell 'dumpling!'"

"Not everyone is an academic, you know!"

"Why are you defending him? I thought you were mad at him?" Lan asked playfully.

"Why are you such a jerk?" was 'Xue's stinging rejoinder, "Stop laughing, you're not funny Lan!"

For most of the ride the two girls chatted amiably, giggling as Kemuri carried them down the trail. It was a half-hour ride through the woods to the cavern where Chen conducted their training. She lived in a mid-sized cabin at the end of the meandering trail, built to hide the mouth of the cave. She had instructed her students to tell anyone who asked that she was teaching them literature—even people who really knew what they were doing. It didn't hurt that really did give them reading assignments, though all the books she picked were horrible.

"Be good while we're training, okay Kem?" Lan told her friend after she and Lixue had slid down off his back. He tossed his head, then turned and cantered off into the trees. He wouldn't go far—there was a berry patch nearby that he liked to browse, and when he got bored he usually wound up napping under Chen's willow tree.

Chen's front door was unlocked, as usual, and the girls stopped in the kitchen for a drink of water before heading downstairs. They all remembered when Chen's cabin had been built, though it felt like so long ago. Everyone in town knew about the secret entrance to their training cavern—in the back of the closet under the stairs. They had to crowd in and shut the door behind them, then fumble for the hidden panel that opened the door. Beyond that there was more searching around for the light switch, and the stairs came into view.

They could hear the others before they reached the bottom, where they flicked the stair-lights off with the corresponding switch. "You girls are late," Chen called out to them as they hurried to take their places with their respective groups.

In Chen's training group there were six earthbenders, three waterbenders, and two firebenders. Chen herself had once been a firebender, before her bending was taken away at age ten. They had all heard the story—the Equalist Seekers had found her family hiding out on an island off the coast of the Southern Earth Kingdom, and they had all been arrested and brought before Amon to have their bending taken away. "We were isolated, in the middle of nowhere, and they still found us," she had told them, "I don't believe that anyone is safe because of _where_ they are. You have to learn to protect yourselves, because they _will_ eventually find you." And Lan wondered why she was having nightmares.

Sifu Chen was incredible, though. After she had had her bending taken away, she had made it her life's mission to train young benders, to make sure what happened to her didn't happen to them. She had spent years studying different bending forms in secret, mastering all four elements much like the Avatar was meant to do. If it wasn't for Chen, none of them would know much more than the basics, nor would they know much of the "forgotten" history of the world. Chen didn't sugarcoat anything, that was for certain.

"Sorry Sifu Chen," they said in unison. Then it was time for warm-ups—stretching, basic forms. After that was more advanced forms, then sparring. Chen moved among them, providing critique, giving pointers. They had all been training with her for so long, they could almost tell what she was going to say before she said it. Unconsciously, they would all straighten up whenever they saw her coming their way, moving in tandem. When they were all lined up, Lan could see more clearly what Jiayi was so worried about—they looked like a drilling army regiment. _But we're just kids_, she thought.

"Everyone pair up with a different element, go for fifteen minute rounds. Odd man out gets a break." The students hurried to obey, and Lan ended up getting paired up with one of the other waterbenders, a girl named Niu—Lixue's self-proclaimed arch-rival in love.

Although Lan considered the whole situation to be rather humorous, Lixue was deadly serious about it, and both Niu and Ye were completely oblivious. Ye was a moron, so that was no surprise, but Niu was more like an innocent bystander than anything else. She was tall and lovely, with thick, curly dark hair, coffee skin, and dark blue eyes. Her family were refugees from the Southern Water Tribe—they had escaped before the Equalist incursion, and wound up in Xiao Difang after nearly a year of running. Of course, that had been years ago before Niu had even been born. Amon had spent years before that conquering the Earth Kingdom, only moving on once he had finally toppled the Royal Family in Ba Sing Se.

"How's your little brother?" Lan asked as they bowed to one another. A few weeks before he had fallen and broken his arm. Ever since, Niu had been obsessively studying healing techniques.

"He's a lot better," she said with a smile, "Thanks for asking." Then she drew water from a nearby divot carved it the floor, and whipped it at Lan's head. She blocked the head-on attack by wrenching a wall of rock up to duck behind, but the water came streaming around the sides, so she had to dodge.

Fifteen minutes later they switched, and Lan wound up facing one of the firebenders. By the time she finally got to take a break over half-an-hour later, she was sweating, both damp, dirty, and scorched, and glad she'd stored a change of clothes at Chen's house. There was no way she could show up at the temple looking the way she did—Jiayi would give her the brow-beating of a lifetime.

"You're doing well, Lan," Chen said as she staggered over to a stone bench, where their teacher handed her a glass of water.

"Thank you, Sifu Chen," she said gratefully. Chen was tough, but she gave credit where credit was due.

"I'd pity any Equalist that had to go up against you kids, if I had any pity left for the bastards." Lan didn't know what to say to that, so she busied herself with taking a long sip of water. She often felt bad for Chen, though she knew the woman wouldn't appreciate the sympathy. If she hadn't had her bending taken, she could have had a completely different life. She wouldn't have grown up with a burning hatred in her heart, and room for little else. Now in her forties, her once shining black hair had started to grey, and her face was creased with frown-lines—the woman almost never smiled. Smirked, yes, but smiling? Not so much.

Their training sessions usually went on for a few hours, and this one was no different. At least Chen usually gave them lunch before they left—aside from being a non-bending bending master, Chen was an astounding chef. When she wasn't training her students, she was usually cooking something, and she always had plenty of gourmet leftovers for them to feast upon. It was a good thing, too—after a marathon training session, the eleven teens were ravenous.

Today they were served braised turtle-duck, with a sautéed vegetable stir-fry, and fresh-baked bread. Lan grimaced as she watched Ye shovel food down his throat. Aside from being a hulking man-beast with giant muscles, she couldn't fathom what about him made Lixue weak in the knees. He was as dumb as the rocks he liked to hurl around, not to mention inconsiderate of her best friend's feelings. Still, Xue picked a spot next to him at the table, and was giggling flirtatiously at everything he said, all the while looking daggers at Niu, who was too busy repainting her fingernails to notice.

Lan couldn't tell if she should be glad there weren't any boys in town that she liked, or not. Ye was a year older than she and Xue, and then there was Chou, who was two years younger and already dating the shyest girl in town, Tao. And there were the twins, Aki and Goro, who were both twelve and more interested in putting various bugs in girls' hair than the actual girls themselves. The other three benders in their group were all girls—Hana, Biyu, and Juan—and she was fairly certain she wasn't into girls. The rest of her prospects were all non-benders, and she had a feeling none of them were interested in dating a bender. Even though no one in town was an Equalist—at least she hoped not—there was a certain amount of fear-related tension between the two groups.

There were occasional fights, but nothing too serious. The benders were ever-vigilant, and the non-benders were afraid of what might happen to them if the Equalists ever found them out. Harboring benders was just as illegal as being a bender, if not more so. There was an implication of treason that went along with being someone who was truly for equal rights—someone who didn't believe in superiority for one side or the other, because benders were a menace, and needed to be wiped out.

Lan sighed. Sometimes she felt silly worrying about things like dating when there were larger issues at hand. But the Equalists had no interest in Xiao Difang. They were well hidden, and this was where her life was. She had to protect her friends, be it from danger or heartbreak.

Out in Chen's yard, Kemuri looked up from where he was lounging under the willow tree, nibbling at a patch of dandelions. The twins ran up to him, offering carrots and rubbing him under his chin. "Getting spoiled, are we?" she asked as she walked over. Kemuri flicked his tail, and let his eyes drift shut serenely while the twins fawned over him.

"He's worse than I am," Xue said, pouting as she watched Ye head for the trail with his arm around Niu's shoulders.

"You're the original Xiao Difang Divas," Lan said, trying to coax a smile out of her friend. Not for the first time, she wished that they could leave this town. There were plenty of fish in the sea, as they said, but Xiao Difang was a finch-frog pond. She was tired of seeing Xue chase after a boy who had no interest in her. She was tired of worrying, waiting for the Equalist Seekers to descend upon their tiny town. And she was tired of her dreams, of waking every morning with the image of a man she'd never even met in her mind.

All these things she kept to herself, though. She didn't want anyone to worry about her, and to talk about these dreams was to invite questions she wasn't sure she could answer. More than anything, though, she didn't want to break the illusion—the one that said that all was well, that life would always go on as it was now. Xiao Difang was a place of peace. It was home. It was safe.

She had to keep thinking that. Even if she didn't really believe it.

X

"This is the place, then?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, lowering his binoculars, "The school is in a cavern in the hill behind the house."

"Do you still want to wait for the others? We could probably handle them by ourselves."

"There's only us, and six Seekers, Haneul."

"No, there's _you_, and seven elite soldiers," she corrected with a grin.

"We wait," he said more sternly. If they attacked now there would be resistance. There would be bloodshed. He wasn't interested in having to report casualties. If they waited for the backup he'd called for, then the benders would have no choice but to surrender.

This whole situation worried him, though. They hadn't found a community like this in a long time. The town was small—just over a few hundred residents. Almost a quarter of them were benders, by his estimation. This operation had been underway for months, and still they were unsure of so many people. The only concrete evidence they had was this school. The seismic activity they registered whenever all of these children showed up to train was irrefutable.

"As you say, Fen," Han said, huffing as she took another look through her binoculars. It was good that none of these benders practiced the Beifong seismic-sensing technique, or they would have been found out long ago. They were only a mile away, on a ridge overlooking the town. A perfect vantage point.

"As I say," he agreed. This would all go off without a hitch. It had to.

X

Alright, there's the setup. This took me nine million years to write. xP Next chapter, shit is going down.


End file.
